As genomic analysis techniques have advanced, the ability to process the vast amount of raw sequence data has not kept pace to provide information quickly to yield prognoses, diagnoses, and other genome-based analyses to a point-of-care, a patient, or healthcare provider. Some effort has been made to produce efficient genomic analyses, but these efforts have all failed to provide this kind of analysis across a large number of data sets associated with individuals and populations.
International Application No. PCT/US2002/014665 to Hytopoulos discusses an apparatus and method for performing genetic analyses in a client-server environment over a data network. However, Hytopoulos fails to harness the advantages of large-scale or continent-wide fiber optic networks to parse out segments of genomic information for analysis in parallel.
U.S. Pat. Publ. No. 2012/0066001 A1 to Sanborn discusses a method for deriving a differential genetic sequence object on the basis of alignment of sub-strings via incremental synchronization of sequence strings using known positions of the sub-strings relative to a reference genome sequence. Sanborn, however, does not appear to discuss utilizing a plurality of analysis nodes connected on an analysis network to process sequence data from a plurality of patients in parallel.
International Application No. PCT/US1999/020449 to Steward discusses a method of genomic data discovery, by providing a gene data base, selecting at least 10 genes, discovering knowledge for selected gene, repeating these steps for a plurality of genes, and repeating all steps such that knowledge is discovered substantially in parallel for all the selected genes. Steward, however, does not appear to discuss utilizing an analysis network and a plurality of analysis nodes to yield quick and efficient results at a point-of-care, a patient, or healthcare provider.
International Application No. PCT/US2000/042469 to Dyer discusses a computer search tool and supporting database for use in analyzing genomes. Dyer, however, does not appear to discuss acquiring sequence data from a plurality of sequencing devices nor utilize a plurality of analysis nodes connected on an analysis network to process sequence data from patients in parallel.
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To date, the ability to derive actionable information from genomic analysis has been hindered equally by the inability to (1) rapidly transport big genomic data to processing and storage computers located at centralized data centers, (2) accurately assess all of the variances found in the DNA of a patient's cancer tissue, (3) identify the many clones in a heterogeneous disease such as cancer, and (4) predict the systemic impact of each variance of each clone on the cellular signaling pathways.
Thus, there is still a need for harnessing large-scale networks and continent-wide fiber-optic networks to provide genomic analysis stream management.